“You can only do so much with salary,” says global architecture and design firm Gensler, in their 2008 Workplace survey. “High-performing companies, the ones with high profits, strong brand positioning, and better employee engagement, are the ones that have the highest-performing workplaces,” the study said.

So, what exactly does a high-performing business workplace look like? Steelcase researchers agree that Generation-Y workers seem to know, as do Baby Boomers, who are slowly picking up their values from the younger set, this kind of business setting allows for four basic elements to come together and happen at any time:

1. Focus – Concentrating on “head down” work.
2. Collaboration – Working with other people to achieve a goal.
3. Learning – Building knowledge through education or experience.
4. Socialization – Interacting interpersonally with others.

What’s being seen is that the importance placed on a company’s size, brand image, and history is shifting to how well the business can support a worker’s preferred working style, how much they can learn, and how well it supports work/life integration. In other words, a business’ physical workplace has to get better at allowing the people in it to learn, create, and innovate.

How does that happen? We’ve found that a range of work settings is key. The ones that are the most effective support all of the four personal work modes above. Some ideas might be as easy as installing outlets around the office with seating to allow employees to plug in their computers and congregate, or by using Media:Scape technology in your conference rooms.

Skeptics may say that a changing business’ office characteristics isn’t the only way to building a high-performance company, but we feel that it’s certainly key to surmounting the challenge, which is why we’ve made a range of products such as cobi, i2i, and c:scape that attempt to do just that.

Backed up by data that you can find on our Come Together website, we’ve seen that the environmental aspects of work reinforces a company’s values – by paying attention to how you’re communicating access, openness, and free communication to your employees, you’ll be well on your way to enhanced performance.